MOSCOW.- The Lumiere Brothers Center for Photography is presenting an exhibition of Polish photographer Kacper Kowalski whose series of works, such as Toxic Beauty, Flood from the Sky, Polish Autumn have received numerous international awards. The exhibition showcases his most recent project Side Effects that was also published as the artist’s very first monograph.

Kacper Kowalski, born in 1977, was supposed to be an architect. Yet five years of studies and four of designing were more than enough for him. In 2006, he eventually quit his job and turned to his two true passions: flying and photography. Both a pilot and a photographer, he takes unique control over each shot, capturing previously unseen natural environments and ordinarily inaccessible cityscapes. The results are unreal, almost graphic images, which reveal patterns, symmetries, and asymmetries created by humans and nature. Views from the air reveal an impact of industry on the environment that is hard to see from the ground, as effluent leeches into the Polish landscape—coal ash (the waste that remains after coal is combusted, containing toxic heavy metals) from power stations, by-products of mining, emissions from chemical factories. What is the natural environment for humans? Is it an untouched, virgin landscape? Or is it a landscape that has changed, adapted to human needs?

«I don’t want to valuate those pictures, and I don’t want to name those pictures, and I don’t want to caption them because I would like to leave those pictures for interpretation. I want to take my audience with me.., as if they would be my passengers».

Kowalski aerial photographs have received numerous awards, including World Press Photo awards (2009, 2014, 2015), Picture of the Year International POYi awards (2012, 2014, 2015), NPPA Best of Photojournalism award (2013), and the Sony World Photography Award (2014). His first photography book, Side Effects, was published in early 2014 and received PDN Photo Annual 2015.

Kacper lives and works in Gdynia, Poland.